Please turn with me in the Word of God to the book of Psalms, the 30th Psalm. That will be our scripture reading, a text for today. Psalm 30, reading from the beginning to the end. Psalm 30, let us hear God's own Word. A Psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face, and I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me. O Lord, be my helper. You have turned my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. That my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. So far the reading of God's word. This is a remarkable psalm of praise that David wrote, and it's remarkable in several different ways. It has been looked at for its remarkable beauty in some of its phrases. Indeed, the King James Version of verse 5 became really famous in the English-speaking world. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. What words of hope, what words of encouragement, particularly in difficulty, That the difficulty doesn't last forever, but night gives way to day and joy comes in the morning. So it's a beautiful psalm. It's also an amazingly intensely personal psalm. We'll look at that as we go along, but it's a psalm that arises out of a very difficult time in the life of David. It's a reflection back on very serious problems in the life of David. And we'll come back to look at what those psalms are, but we want to notice that, how intensely personal this psalm is. And yet, David does not reserve it just for his own personal expression or experience, nor does he commend it to us just individually for us to meditate in our own circumstances of life. But do you notice the title of this psalm, how curious it is? We read a song at the dedication of the temple. Now, actually, literally, the Hebrews says a song at the dedication of the house. And so we're not absolutely sure if David intended this to be used at the dedication of his own house, his palace in Jerusalem, or whether he intended it at the dedication of the tabernacle, the Lord's house in Jerusalem, but whichever it is, he intended it for a very public occasion. He intended it to have significance not just for himself personally, or for individual members of the people of God personally, but he also intended it to have significance for all the people of God together. And I think what he saw arising out of this intense personal experience he'd had was something that reflects on every Christian's experience. Reflects on how we're to understand our life and how we're to move from problems through prayers to the provision of God. For those of you who like to take notes, those are the three points. Problems, prayers, and the provisions of God. What's the problem here? Well, at first glance, there are lots of problems. He's got enemies, he's sick, he's on the verge of dying. There are a lot of problems. But when we look very carefully at this psalm, we find those problems are only symptoms of a deeper problem. And the deeper problem that David had was not these significant, but still somewhat external problems of life. The real problem that David is wrestling with, the real problem that David wants all of us to wrestle with as the people of God, is a spiritual problem. The spiritual problem of, in our pride, forgetting God. That's the danger. It's a danger that can always come to the people of God. It's a danger that can haunt us in small ways as we go through our life, but also can come to us at traumatic moments in our life. And David gives expression to that, particularly in verse 6, where he writes, as for me, you notice the focus is on himself here. As for me, I said in my prosperity, I said in my ease, I said in my quiet, I said when life had gotten so good, everything seemed perfect. Have you ever had those moments in life? They're probably somewhat fleeting for most of us. But there are moments, aren't they, when you look out on life and say, everything is going great. The job's good, the family's good, life is good. I'm healthy. David said, I had one of those moments, and I said, in my prosperity, in my ease, in the quiet of my life, in the success of my life, I shall never be moved. I've got it right, and it's going to go on. I remember hearing pundits say that back in the Clinton administration. The government has now gotten the economy so right, we will never have economic problems again. Those pundits who can always rely on them. But there are moments in life when we can feel like that, aren't there? Things are going great. But in particular, you see, David recognized that he had come to this conclusion that everything was right in his life, and he had done it. He'd gotten it right. I will never be moved. And that word has a sense of never be tottered, never be knocked over. I will never stumble. I will never stagger. Things are going great and they'll always go great. Some of you boys and girls may occasionally play king of the mountain on the beach. We used to do that as kids or on a raft in a lake. And the object is to be the one who's king of the mountain and in control. The trouble is you kind of knew it was unlikely you would never be moved. At least you knew there'd be enemies after you to knock you off the raft. But here's David, king of the mountain. I will never be moved. But what's wrong? He hasn't made himself king of the mountain. He hasn't given himself peace. He hasn't given himself prosperity. But he's forgotten for a moment where his peace, where his prosperity, where his joy came from. He had forgotten, maybe some of you have forgotten, the words of Deuteronomy chapter 8. Now those words just come to mind, don't they? Deuteronomy chapter 8, where Moses had written, Take care, lest you forget the Lord your God, by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses, when you come to dedicate the house, when you've built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart will be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Beware, lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand have gotten Me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers as it is this day. Israel had been warned that there was always this danger that comes to the people of God, that when things go well, they become forgetful of the source, the author, the giver of the good gifts. In fact, you can summarize the whole history of Israel that when things go well, they are forgetful. When things go badly, they are grumbling to hard people to please, to get things right. But David has had that moment now in his experience. Things have gone so well that he's begun to think his wisdom, his power, his might, his success have brought him the victory. He's gone out on the battlefield. He's fought. He's led the troops. He's gotten the victory. And now he's in his capital and he's built his palace and things are going well. And he's been inclined to say, I shall never be moved. Someone as wise, as successful, with all the planning that I've done, I will never be moved. And the problem then that this psalm faces is the problem of how David has become proud and how David must be humbled. Because what Psalm 30, verse 7 reflects on is how the Lord got his attention and how the Lord reminded him of reality. By your favor, O Lord, by your grace, by your goodness, by your pleasure in me, this is the fact David comes to. By your favor, O Lord, you are the one who made my mountain stand strong. But when you hid your face, I was dismayed. I was terrified. I thought I could never be moved, O Lord, and then you moved me. You brought sickness into my life, David says. You brought me down nearly to the grave so that I had to face the fact that what I had, I did not have in my own strength or in my own wisdom, but I'd had only from you. Now, the scripture tells us that David was the man after God's own heart. God loved David. And God gave David many, many gifts. He did give him great success. He gave him great wealth. He gave him great talent. So that David became known as the sweet singer of Israel. He was not only a military man, but he was a musical man. He was a soldier and a poet. But he was also a sinner, who could become forgetful of God. And David's experience points us forward to our true king, our only hope, Jesus. Who never forgot God. Who never got lifted up in a sinful pride. Who never took his attention or his eyes away from his heavenly father. we see Jesus as the one of whom God could say this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased always pleased in his son Jesus Jesus never had to be humbled the way David needed to be humbled Jesus never needed to be reminded the way David needed to be reminded and David puts this psalm before us so that we might see a reflection of our continuing weakness and our continuing need and our continuing temptation at times in our lives in great ways or little ways to forget the Lord and to trust ourselves and David says I want the whole nation to know the Lord took extreme measures to get my attention I became sick. So sick I thought I was going down to the dust. I had enemies waiting to gloat over me and rejoice in me. I came to realize that this was the hand of the Lord. Get my attention. Now this psalm is not teaching us that every time we get sick it's the hand of the Lord because we've been sinful. But this psalm is saying to us, we need to realize that all that we have comes from the Lord and we must acknowledge him. And when we find ourselves in a perilous spiritual position, then we must deal with our problems by turning to prayer to him. And this psalm, as we reflect on it, teaches us some very important things about prayer. And the most important, these are not earth-shattering things. You know all these things, but we need to be reminded of these things. The first thing that we're taught is that prayer is personal. Why does Jesus tell us that God hates vain repetition in prayer? It's because it impersonalizes prayer. If you just think that God will hear you for the number of times that you pray or repeat the same words, you're impersonalizing prayer. You're making it just something mechanical, something rote. God wants us to be his people. He wants us to be his children. He wants us to communicate in a loving way with him. And if we're just repeating words off the top of our head, that's a way of despising God. It's a way of rejecting the fundamental relationship that he's established between him and us. Be a little like us recording a prayer. And then every time we need to pray, we could just push the button and go on doing something else. See, that's no way to relate to God. We could, I mean, I couldn't, but some people could text God, right? And then you could just keep hitting the button and sending the text. But you see, this is profoundly impersonal. It misses the whole point of prayer. The whole point of prayer is that we as God's children can turn to him as our heavenly father and pour out our hearts to him, to express our love for him, to express our trust in him, to express our recognition of him, to acknowledge, as David does twice in the psalm, that he knows he possesses God's favor. And that word favor there means God's liking, God's pleasure. Do you ever think that, that God takes pleasure in you? You're probably good enough Calvinist to say, well, now wait a minute, I'm a sinner. No, he doesn't take pleasure in your sin, but he takes pleasure in you. He's loved you with an everlasting love. He's called you to himself. He's regenerated you by his Holy Spirit. He's incorporated you in his family. He takes pleasure in you, and that's part of the foundation of prayer. A conversation with your Heavenly Father. So, David shows us the personal quality of prayer. He also shows us the emotional quality of prayer. David cries out. He weeps before the Lord. He pleads for God's help. Again, you see, this isn't just a dry intellectual exercise. Oops, been bad, need to pray. That's not our relationship with God. David is struck in his heart by the offense of his pride. And he turns to the Lord and he cries out for help. He pleads with the Lord. He weeps before the Lord that the Lord might forgive him, that the Lord might show him mercy. And our prayer needs to reflect something of that. There's a little bit of danger in some Reformed circles of thinking that Stoicism is the real way to relate to God. Just stiff upper lip, grin and bear it. Don't show any emotion. Don't let on that it hurts. When you come to church, people say, how are you? There's only one answer. Fine. Fine. Have you ever come to church and said, how are you? And had somebody say, I've been a terrible sinner this week. We'd all be embarrassed out of our socks, especially if they told us what particular sins they've done. How are you today? Fine. Not every day. Not every Sunday. And David shows us that there is an appropriateness. Again, we don't want to manufacture emotion. That's mechanical in just as bad a way as suppressing emotion. But we want an honest relationship with God. That's what this psalm is talking about. But it's not just purely emotional. It's personal, it's emotional, but it's fascinatingly reasoning with God. Do you ever reason with God when you pray? Do you ever explain to God why he ought to give you what you want? It's a really great exercise, and we find the Psalms doing that fairly frequently. And the reason it's valuable is because there are some requests we might be inclined to bring to God, and then we can't think of a single reason why he should give it to us. Then you probably shouldn't pray that at all. If all our reasons for asking God for something are selfish and we're embarrassed to explain them to God, then maybe we shouldn't be praying for that. We ought to be praying for things that advance his kingdom and advance his glory. And that's what David does in verse 9, that otherwise rather peculiar verse. He's reasoning with God in prayer. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Twice in other places, David has called on us to give thanks to the Lord in verse 4 and in verse 12. And actually, that same verb is to be found in verse 9. It really should read, it seems to me. Will the dust thank you? And what David is saying here is not that the dead have no future life, but he's saying, you have called me to be king of my people and to gather with them in public worship. And if I die, I can't lead them in worship that way anymore. And if I die, I can't appear before your house to thank you. My dust won't thank you. But here, living in this body, I can thank you. And so, O Lord, heal me. O Lord, prolong my life. O Lord, use me that I may continue to serve you and do what you've called me to do as your servant. That's how we need to reason with God in prayer. Our prayers need to be grounded in what will advance the cause and kingdom of glory and glory of Christ. And that's what David is showing us here. And out of that wonderful turning to God, turning away from his pride, being humbled before the Lord, then David receives the provision of the Lord. He receives the blessings of the Lord, the goodness of the Lord. And I've titled this sermon, you may have wondered why, David's Resurrection. And I've titled it that because I don't think it's too strong a way of putting how David finds himself delivered from the Lord, from his pride, from his distress, from the calamities of his life due to his forgetfulness of God. He says in verse 3, O Lord, you have brought my soul up from Sheol. You restored me. You renewed me to life from among those who go down to the pit. I was at the edge of the grave. I was almost gone. But you, O God, are the God of life. You are the God who brings us back to life and to yourself. This is a real resurrection for David. Now, he's not saying his body was in the grave. He's not saying that his spirit was gone. But he was right there. He was right at the edge of death. He was right at the edge of perishing. And God brought him back. And he expresses it in particularly wonderful ways in verse 1. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up. It's a verb that's used to draw water out of a well. And the picture really is that David has, as it were, fallen into this deep well. There's no way he can get out. And the only way you can get water out of a deep well is to drop a bucket way down and pull it way up. And that's exactly what's happened to David. He has found his life that he thought so secure that it was immovable. He's found his life dumped into this pit of a well that he can't get out of. but God will draw him up God has drawn him up God has promised life to his people and the life that is particularly developed particularly promised in this psalm it seems to me is life as a future we have because of the grace of God a future I suppose one of the saddest elements of the report of the slaughter in Colorado yesterday was a report that a six-year-old girl was killed. And we read that and think, oh, all the future she lost. And this psalm in the Bible as a whole always comes to us as the people of God and says, the life that I give you as my people, Is a future. Doesn't matter how young you are. Or how old you are. You have a future. It doesn't matter how well you are. Or how sick you are. You have a future. It doesn't matter how rich you are. Or how poor you are. You have a future. Because you have a heavenly father. who is a life giver. It doesn't matter in the long run that weeping will tarry for a night because joy comes in the morning. It doesn't matter that today we are wrapped in the clothes of mourning because the day of dancing is coming. Now most of us as Calvinists are going to have a lot to learn in heaven about dancing. but it's coming. There's a future. There is joy that awaits us. There is life. And that's what this psalm promises. David looked death in the eye, and God raised him up. Raised him up to years yet of service, and yet also ultimately to grow old and to die. But I suspect that David, on his deathbed, could still sing this psalm, because he knew he had a future. God is the God of life. God is the God of the living, not of the dead. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who live in heavenly glory. And that is the promise of life that is given to us here. And that's why this is a psalm of praise. David is able to praise God even for his problems, because through the problems came prayer, and through the prayer came provisions from the hand of God. And so he says at the beginning, I will extol you. It's one of those words I think we use that we don't think about. What does it mean to extol God? What it literally means in Hebrew is to raise him up. I will raise him up. He raised me up, David says, and now I'll raise him up. I'll acknowledge him. I will recognize him for who he is. I will exalt him. Because he is glorious. He's the one who's immovable. He's the one. He's the one that I will thank and praise forever. That's what the psalm teaches us to do. to raise God up, to give thanks to him forever. And so we should be encouraged today. We should be encouraged to know that whether our sins are great or small, whether our forgetfulness is occasional or has been a huge problem, we have a God who will hear us when we turn to him. We have a God who will forgive us in the blood of Jesus Christ for our sins. We have a God who has shown us that he is a life-giving God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Because as he rose, so one day all in him will rise as well. Because our God gives us a future and gives us a life. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up. Oh, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. May that be the praise of each of our hearts. Amen. Let us pray. Well, Lord, our God, how good you are to us and faithful. And how wonderful is your word to us that encourages us to think over and over and over again about the deep things of your truth and of your ways with us. Oh, we thank you that Jesus bore our problems on the cross and that Jesus is the resurrection and the life for us. And we pray that we might all have joy in him and that whatever the weeping we may have in this life, we may know that in him joy comes in the morning. So bless us and be with us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.